Thanks to the clock-like cyclic motion of heavenly
bodies in space we are able to divide time into periods
such as day and night, months, and years. When the earth
completes one full revolution around the sun it has
turned around its own axis 365 times and the moon has
turned around it 12 times. The Ulema have noted, in this
respect, that the Arabic word for "day" in the singular,
yawm, occurs 365 times in the Qur'An while the Arabic
word for "month" in the singular, shahr, occurs 12 times.

This cyclic motion produces other regular reoccurrences
in the position of the stars and planets, such as the
joint return of the earth and the moon to their same
original point every 19 years or the reappearance of
Halley's comet every 76 years in the earth's sky. These
few reoccurences matter to us but are less than a thin
droplet from the great ocean of cosmic times and motions.
However, if someone were to reveal the ocean itself, as
if he had been present at the beginning of time and were
able to identify and describe its ebb and flow, he must
either be God Himself - or one to whom God speaks.

Al-Bukhari and Muslim narrate from Abu Bakrah - Allah be
well-pleased with him - that the Prophet said upon him
and his House blessings and peace:

Truly, TIME HAS COME AROUND TO THE WAY IT WAS THE
DAY ALLAH CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH [ - ] You
shall all certainly meet your Lord and He shall ask
you about your deeds. Do not go back! Do not go back,
after me, to being misguided pagan unbelievers
striking one another with swords! Lo! Let those that
are present tell those that are absent. It may be
that some of those they will tell will keep this
instruction more faithfully than some of those who
heard it directly. Lo! Have I made myself clear?

In his observation on the revolution of time to his
Companions, the Prophet , upon him blessings and peace,
not only showed familiarity with the circularity of
cosmic time and motion but, more dramatically, hinted
at his encompassing, God-given cosmic knowledge of its
exact modalities. He conveyed the unfathomable, Divine
nature of Prophetic knowledge and information about
the universe as simply as one of us passes a scenery
snapshot to his friends.

The great Saint and Scholar of Murcia and Damascus,
Shaykh Muhyi al-Din Ibn `Arabi, saw in this hadith
on the great revolution of Time a reference to the
primordiality of the person of the Prophet Muhammad
himself upon him blessings and peace - in the light
of his statement - as narrated from Abu Hurayra by
al-Tabari, Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Hakim, and al-Bayhaqi
(as cited by Ibn Kathir in his Tafsir) and from Anas
by al-Bazzar through trustworthy narrators according
to al-Haythami:

Allah Most High said: I have made you the first
of the Prophets to be created and the last of them
to be sent.

There is yet another depth of meaning in the Prophet's
hadith in connection with history. By announcing that
Time had come around to the exact same spot it
occupied the day Allah created the heavens and the
earth, the Prophet - upon him peace - described his
own time as a fresh start for the entire universe. It
is undoubtedly the case with every divinely-appointed
Prophet and Messenger that they each represent a second
chance for the success and perfectibility of mankind.
This is ever more so for the last Prophet, after whom
no Prophet is to come whatsoever. Hence, the Prophet
pleaded, in this last sermon of his delivered at his
"Farewell Pilgrimage" in the last year of his life on
earth: "Do not return, after I am gone, to your previous
state of ignorance."

The hadith encapsulates the Islamic understanding of
the working of salvation in history. There is no chance
of salvation for humankind from the self-destruction
into which the forces of darkness push it since the
beginning of time, except in clinging to the source
of each Prophetic Time-cycle: Moses in the time before
Jesus; Jesus in the time before Muhammad; and Muhammad
until the end of time, to name the last three. And when
Jesus returns for the final triumph of good over evil,
it will be to lead the sincere of his flock into the
fold of the true believers, as a faithful follower of
Muhammad upon them blessings and peace.

2. SLOW TIME AND REVERSE EARTH ROTATION HADITHS

The observation that the rotation of the earth slows
down a fraction of a second every hundred years led
to the extrapolation that four billion years ago the
day and night cycle took only four hours instead of
twenty-four. It is logical to further expect two results.

[1] The earth will continue to slow down to the point
that the day and night will increase inordinately in
duration. This was predicted by the Prophet Muhammad
- upon him and his House blessings and peace - in those
terms in connection with the appearance of the Anti-
Christ at the end of times. Imam Muslim narrated from
al-Nawwas ibn Sam`an al-Kilabi - Allah be well-pleased
with him - that the Prophet mentioned the Anti-Christ
(al-Dajjal) to the Companions "as such a significant
matter that we felt he was in the cluster of the date-
palm trees!" The Prophet said:

Whoever among you lives to see the time of the
Anti-Christ should recite - for protection against
him - the first few verses of Surat al-Kahf. He will
come out from a crater (khalla) between Syro-Palestine
and Iraq. He will spread corruption and evil right
and left like wildfire. Servants of Allah! Be steadfast!
His period on earth will last for forty days: one day
will be like a year, one like a month, one like a week
and the rest of his days will be like your days.

[2] The earth's rotation will eventually come to a full
stop and revert itself, at which point the sun will rise
from the West. This, too, was predicted by the Prophet
- upon him peace - in those same terms. Al-Bukhari and
Muslim narrate from Abu Hurayra - Allah be well-pleased
with him - that the Prophet said:

The final hour will not begin until the sun rises
from its point of setting. When the sun rises from
the West and the people see that, they will all
believe. However, at that time, {its belief avails
naught a soul which theretofore believed not} (6:158).

The Prophet - upon him peace - gave further confirmation
of this sequence of events in another hadith. When
Hudhayfa - Allah be well-pleased with him - asked what
the immediate sign of the Western sunrise would be, the
Prophet replied that it would be preceded by an inordinately
long night, lasting two or three times more than normal.
Ibn Marduyah and al-Bayhaqi narrated it from Hudhayfa and
Ibn Abi Awfa as stated by Ibn Hajar in Fath al-Bari (11:355).

It is also speculated that the rising of the sun from
the West is connected to the events of the "Cosmic Crunch"
- the pendant of the "Big Bang" at the other extremity in
the lifespan of this universe - at a time the entire
universe will fall back onto itself. In such a scenario,
perhaps the "Cosmic Crunch" would cause the Earth to flip
upside down, which would cause the sun to rise from the
West and set in the East, or perhaps it would change the
rotation of the sun and its planets all together.

Another Western-sunrise scenario is built on the periodic
"magnetic pole reversal" of the earth that would lead to
a temporary re-naming of the East "West" and vice-versa.

Neither the slowing of time not the reversal of the earth's
rotation are bound to take another few million or billion
years to occur. Either could be set into motion by a shock
of massive proportions that would literally unhinge the
globe such as the detonation of hydrogen bombs or the
collision of an asteroid.

3. DYING SUN HADITH

Modern science has shown that the sun is in a state
of constant deperdition of energy and that it will
inevitably die as a star, implode, and engulf the
earth into its supra-dense mass. Al-Bukhari and
Muslim narrate from Abu Dharr - Allah be well-pleased
with him - that the Prophet - upon him and his House
blessings and peace - said as the sun was setting:

Do you know where it goes? It goes to where it
prostrates under the Throne and asks permission
to rise again. Then it receives permission. The
time is very close when it will prostrate but it
will not be accepted, and it will ask permission
but not receive it. It will be told, "Go back
whence you came." At that time it will rise from
its place of setting. This is His saying - Most
High is He! - {and the sun runs its course until
its place of rest (mustaqarr); that is the
measuring of the Mighty, the Wise} (36:38).

The Prophet said that the sun went to a certain place
he described as its place of "prostration" in every
day-and-night cycle. The repetitive "prostration" of
the sun refers to its perceived movement of "rising"
and "setting" in relation to the earth, as in the
verse referring to the prostration of all the heavenly
bodies in the sky of the earth - {The sun and the moon
are made punctual and the stars and trees adore} (55:5-6).
This rising and setting is described as a prostration
under the Throne to signify the seemingly replenished
energy which these innumerable and massive objects
possess. The end of their prostration signifies the
termination of their energy.

Western cosmology traces this energy back to the Big
Bang and extrapolates that its universal end occurs
in the Cosmic Crunch of which the so-called Black Holes
are miniature models in the view of the Princeton
physicist who coined the latter term, John Archibald
Wheeler. The Sunna names the Throne as the source of
this energy and describes the end of the supply as the
termination of Divine permission for the sun to "rise
again" in the usual manner. At that time it will "go
back whence it came" in the sense of stopping its
course, reversing it, or imploding. This end-of-time
even signifies the end of the function of the sun in
relation to the earth, at which time the sun will go
to its mustaqarr or "place of rest," i.e. it will die
as a star. The Cosmic Crunch is essentially a cosmic
reversal of motion - from expansion to implosion - and
the hadith expressed this reversal of motion by
describing the sun as rising from the West.

4. THRONE AS ORIGIN OF ENERGY HADITHS

The author of the _Book of the Throne and All That
Was Related About It_ - Abu Ja`far ibn Abi Shayba -
and others narrated the following reports on the
Divine Throne as the origin of energy and light.

(i) The Companion and freedman (mawla) of the Prophet
Muhammad upon him and his House blessings and peace
- Maysarat al-Fajr - Allah be well-pleased with him - said:

Concerning the saying of Allah Most High in Surat
al-Haqqa, {And the angels will be on the sides thereof,
and eight will uphold the Throne (`arsh) of their Lord
that day, above them} (69:17): Their feet will reach
to the sign-posts dividing the seven earths and they
will be unable to look upwards due to the intensity of
the light.

(ii) The greatest exegete of the Qur'an among the Prophetic
Companions, Ibn `Abbas - Allah be well-pleased with him, said:

[The Archangel] Gibril said to the Prophet upon him
peace: "This is [the archangel] Israfil, Allah Most High
created Him standing to attention before Him from the
moment He created him. He never looks up: between him
and the Lord are seventy lights. There is not one of
those lights that he could approach except it would burn him."

(iii) The Successor (Tabi`i) Zurara ibn Awfa said:

Gibril came to the Prophet upon him peace - who
asked him, "Did you ever see your Lord?" He replied:
"Truly, between me and Him there are seventy veils of
light; if I were to approach the least one of them I would burn."

(iv) Ibn `Abbas also said:

Think about everything but never think about [the
Essence of] Allah Most High for between the seventh
heaven to His Seat of Authority (kursi) there are a
thousand veils of light - and yet He is beyond that.